Restraunt magazine rates Lubbock high

Lubbock ranked among the top cities in the United States for restaurant growth potential, based on the latest forecast released by Restaurant Business magazine.

The forecast, which was conducted by the publications's sister-company, San Diego-based site profiler Claritas Inc., put Lubbock at No. 20 among 318 cities that were charted from greatest potential growth to saturated.

"The rating isn't a ranking of today's hot markets, but where tomorrow's opportunities lie," Claritas said.

Claritas gave Lubbock a Restaurant Growth Index score of 192.

Cities that scored more than 100 in its index showed greatest growth potential. Those that scored at 100 or below, such as Houston (rank  206, index  100) were considered saturated markets. Dallas was borderline with a rank of 182 and an index of 105.

Claritas said its RGI model is a statistical prediction of where new restaurants have the best chance to succeed "based on total restaurant sales and sales as a percent of income at a per capita level."

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get to the meat of the matter, so to speak.

Lubbock ranked 27th in the nation among growth markets based on per-capita food sales at $1,500.83, right behind (and you'll love this one), the beautiful people at West Palm Beach-Boca Rotan, Fla., at $1,507.96.

Of the 318 markets examined, Lubbock stood in the middle of pack (10th in the state) when it came to annual overall restaurant sales  rank: 157, sales: $370,258,688.

In its RGI, the closest Texas cities to Lubbock with restaurant growth potential were Amarillo at 32, Galveston-Texas City at 45, Corpus Christi at 52, San Antonio at 55 and Abilene at 64.

Worst prospects for growth in Texas: Brazoria at 317; Killeen-Temple at 304; Sherman-Dennison at 261; Tyler at 258 and Texarkana at 255.

Other cities showing bleak or little growth potential were Midland/Odessa ranked at 160, Dallas at 182 and Austin at 184.

One thing about Lubbock, we love to eat out  a lot. Which could explain why the city has seen an influx of out-of-town restaurant chains in recent months. Do you want to bet a ribeye that more are coming?

Chris Van Wagenen can be seen on Mondays on KLBK channel 13's 6:30 p.m. newscast